Monday, September 28, 2026 · Covering: the weekend into Monday
TL;DR
Washington and Beijing struck a ~$30B tariff-relief agreement after the Trump-Xi summit — soybeans, rare earths, and a tariff cut — with fuller details due out today, and it's the macro story hanging over every desk this morning. On the deal side, Paramount Skydance's $110B acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery cleared a major hurdle as it settled a multistate lawsuit and lined up another $7.5B of debt to fund the deal, while Aon's $17B, fully debt-financed purchase of USI Insurance from KKR keeps the leveraged-finance machine humming. In defense, the Hanwha–Austal USA shipbuilding bidding war remains unresolved heading into the week — worth watching given the CFIUS stakes.
TOP 3 DEALS
DEAL 1
TMT / Media
DEAL SIZE (EV)~$110B
STATUSShareholders approved; states settled
BUYER ADVISORSAdvisors TBD
SELLER ADVISORSAdvisors TBD
Paramount Skydance settled a multistate lawsuit challenging its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, agreeing to keep investing in U.S. film production and preserve editorial independence at CNN in exchange for the states dropping their case. Paramount is separately raising another $7.5 billion of debt to help fund the deal, on top of what it already borrowed.
Why it matters for recruiting: One of the largest media mergers ever, and a live case study in how regulatory and state-AG risk gets priced, negotiated away, and financed — exactly the kind of "walk me through deal risk" story interviewers reach for.
DEAL 2
Financial Services / Lev Fin
DEAL SIZE (EV)$17B, all-cash
FINANCING100% funded with new debt
BUYER LEGALMcDermott Will & Emery (Aon)
FINANCIAL ADVISORSAdvisors TBD
Insurance broker Aon agreed to buy USI Insurance Services from KKR for $17 billion in an all-cash deal funded entirely with borrowed money, creating what Aon calls the premier U.S. middle-market insurance brokerage platform. It's one of the largest leveraged acquisitions of the year outside of tech and healthcare.
Why it matters for recruiting: A clean lev-fin case: a strategic acquirer taking on a large debt load to buy scale, which is exactly the kind of capital-structure question ("how would you finance this, and what does it do to their credit profile?") you should be ready to walk through.
DEAL 3
Defense / Industrials
DEAL SIZE (EV)Up to ~$1.2–1.7B
STATUSCompeting bids, no resolution yet
BIDDER ADVISORSAdvisors TBD
TARGET ADVISORSAdvisors TBD
South Korea's Hanwha and a rival group of U.S. investors are still competing for control of Austal USA, the Alabama shipyard that builds Littoral Combat Ships for the Navy, with no resolution over the weekend. Because Austal is a sensitive defense asset, Hanwha's foreign ownership continues to invite close CFIUS scrutiny, which is widely seen as favoring the domestic bidder.
Why it matters for recruiting: Still the cleanest live example of national-security review shaping deal outcome — useful to have "up to date" if a defense-coverage interviewer asks what you're following this week.
SECTOR SIGNAL
DEFENSE / AEROSPACE
The Austal bidding war (above) remains the story to watch; expect a resolution or a formal Hanwha counter-bid within the next week or two. Source ↗
TECH / TMT
The BlackRock/IFM-led consortium remains in exclusive talks on its ~$25B purchase of Stack's Asia-Pacific data centers, with no signed agreement yet as of Sunday. Source ↗
INDUSTRIALS / ENERGY
Enbridge announced a US$2.55B acquisition of U.S. pipeline and storage assets, part of a broader wave of corporate consolidation in midstream energy this year. Source ↗
HEALTHCARE / OTHER
Biopharma and medtech dealmaking is still running well ahead of last year's pace, with bankers citing platform consolidation and supply-chain security (see Telix/ITM, covered Friday) as the dominant rationale into year-end. Source ↗
M&A / LEVERAGED FINANCE
Two of this week's biggest transactions — Aon/USI and Paramount's added $7.5B raise for the Warner Bros. Discovery deal — are reminders that debt markets are wide open for large strategic M&A right now. Source ↗ Leveraged-loan and high-yield issuance conditions remain "cautiously optimistic" into Q4, per credit-market surveys, with sponsors still selective on price. Source ↗
MARKET TONE
U.S. and China struck a ~$30B tariff deal following the Trump-Xi summit, covering soybean purchases, rare-earth exports, and reciprocal tariff cuts — with the U.S. Trade Representative saying fuller details would come out Monday. Source ↗
Wall Street notched a winning week despite the noise. The Dow jumped more than 470 points on Friday, closing out a positive week even as Treasury yields surged throughout. Source ↗
Futures were soft to start the new week, as investors waited for the promised details on the U.S.-China trade framework before committing to the next leg higher. Source ↗
Yields remain the story underneath the story. The 10-year has been pushing back toward 5%, a headwind for rate-sensitive sectors and a factor in how aggressively buyers can lever up new deals. Source ↗
Oil firmed alongside yields last week, another input weighing on the rate-sensitive parts of the market even as risk appetite for large M&A stayed strong. Source ↗
INTERVIEW ANGLE
TOPIC: PRICING AND NEGOTIATING AWAY REGULATORY RISK IN A MEGA-MERGER
The Paramount Skydance–Warner Bros. Discovery settlement is a great lens on how bankers and lawyers actually get a $100B+ deal across the finish line once shareholders have already said yes.
The risk: state attorneys general and antitrust regulators can hold up or kill a deal even after shareholders approve it, which is exactly what happened here before the settlement.
How it got solved: Paramount didn't fight the states in court to the end — it negotiated concrete concessions (continued U.S. film investment, editorial protections for CNN) that gave the states a win without blowing up deal economics.
Why banks care: "deal certainty" — the probability a signed deal actually closes — directly affects how a target's stock trades against the offer price (the arb spread), and advisors get paid on completion, not signing.
How to bring it up: If asked about regulatory risk in M&A, use this deal to show you understand it's not just "will the FTC block it" — it's a negotiation with real, priceable concessions on both sides.